Tale of Two Senators on Forest Plan Problems

A growing controversy over a shelved Forest Service draft management plan has now gotten two US Senators involved with National Forest Service officials and the Bush Administration.

Both Colorado Senators Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard are complaining about the problems concerning the draft plan for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests that has been held up so federal officials can review it under the guidelines of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Over four years of public comment and studies were ignored when Undersecretary of the Dept. of Agriculture, Mark Rey, removed the draft document from public review, Salazar contends.

Salazar has mentioned that he remains “skeptical and suspicious” of the explanation for the plan’s delay and vows to “find out a lot more” about this growing debate and rumors of “high level meetings” in Washington DC that put the draft plan on the skids, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

On the other hand, Allard is upset about the waste of trees-trees used to make the paper and the $16,000 print bill for the discarded draft plan.

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The Colorado Independent has been amplifying the voices of vulnerable Coloradans and holding public officials to account since 2013. Starting in the fall of 2020, we will be teaming up with the Colorado Press Association and Colorado Media Project as part of COLab, an incubator for journalists to collaborate at a time when news resources are scarce. Our primary role will be to work one-on-one with journalists in newsrooms statewide to help them report challenging stories they couldn’t cover alone.

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OUR MISSION

The Colorado Independent has been amplifying the voices of vulnerable Coloradans and holding public officials to account since 2013. Starting in the fall of 2020, we will be teaming up with the Colorado Press Association and Colorado Media Project as part of COLab, an incubator for journalists to collaborate at a time when news resources are scarce. Our primary role will be to work one-on-one with journalists in newsrooms statewide to help them report challenging stories they couldn’t cover alone.